“Jesus Christ,” he whispered.
Leaving the letter in his trouser pocket, he unknotted the mosquito net hanging over the bed. He made his way around the mattress, tucking the net underneath, leaving a small gap through which he finally crawled. Safe inside, he reached his hand out to switch off the bedside lamp then tucked in the rest of the net.
2
THROUGH A GAUZE OF CLOUDS Clare glimpsed the grey-white landscape, cut through with ruler-straight roads and patched with rectangular roofs. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. On the headphones Gilles Vigneault was singing “Mon Pays,” but her mind wasn’t on the music.
We can’t ever really know anyone else, can we, she began.
Depends what you mean by know.
What life is really like for them, what they really think. It’s impossible. We’re all locked inside ourselves.
You mean you are, Clare.
Maybe. But I think it goes for everyone. We can imagine somebody else’s life, but we’ll never know for sure if we’re right.
Yeah, well as far as that goes, who’s to say we know ourselves any better? Who the hell is Clare Fraser?
Sometimes I think I know. When I’m back here, it’s obvious. The question seems pointless.
The plane dipped gently, and the seatbelt sign chimed.
What made you think of this anyway?
I was thinking about my parents. What they were like when they were younger ...
Their sex life you mean.
Emma. It’s not that. It’s nothing to do with that.
Oh, come on. You’re dying to know if—
No, never mind. We’re about to land.
THE PEOPLE SURROUNDING CLARE and her mother in the arrivals hall had waiting faces—necks craning, eyes searching. The greeters hovered in heavy coats and clumpy boots, dripping dirty puddles of melted snow on the linoleum floor. The passengers streamed endlessly through the sliding security doors and around the luggage carousel, underdressed, burdened with parcels, a little dazed. Like camera flashes, faces lit up as searched-for parties or pieces of luggage were spotted, and gradually a uniform wave of satisfaction swept through the crowd. Beyond their superficial uniformity, however, the people in the crowd were, as always, unreadable, their circumstances unknowable. Even the most banal of exchanges with any one of them would involve infinite risks: a smile could be tactless; a comment about the weather could trigger terrible memories. How could one tell? Sensibly averting her eyes from these strangers’ faces, Clare watched the assembly-line progress of suitcases rumbling from the chute and sliding into place on the carousel. In her head, the conversation with Emma competed with the hurried, desperate voice of Gilles Vigneault.
Go on, ask her.
I’ll ask her in the car.
You’re such a chicken.
Dans la blanche cérémonie, où la neige au vent se marie; Dans ce pays de poudrerie, mon père a fait bâtir maison.
I just got here.
You’ve only been gone three weeks. And it’s just your mother. What are you worried about?
I’m not worried. But it is my mother. We don’t talk about that stuff.
Et je m’en vais être fidèle, à sa manière, à son modèle.
Don’t talk about it then. Just get a yes or a no.
I’ll ask her, Emma. When the time’s right.
You promise?
Mon pays ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver ...
She reached in front of her mother for her suitcase and hauled it awkwardly onto the luggage trolley. As they made their way out through the mob, she kept her eyes down. The conversation in her head drivelled on, a secret necessity, until they exited into the vast, frozen airport parking lot, where at last she relaxed her grip on the trolley and allowed herself to look around. Like her fellow passengers, she was underdressed—jeans, T-shirt, running shoes, rain jacket—but at home.
“It’s a pity Easter’s so early this year,” her mother said. “It hardly seems the season for it.”
“Mmm. You’re right.”
“Did you have a good flight, pet?”
“It was fine.”
“Was the food all right?”
“Not too bad.”
“Was there a movie?”
“Yeah. I didn’t watch it.”
She’d fallen asleep listening to Traditions Québecoises on the headphones. Leaning against the window she’d dreamed of a solitary man on a snowy plain. It could have been Gilles Vigneault—the man in the dream was singing—but he was wearing her father’s overcoat. His grey hair blew wildly in a whistling gale that threatened to drown his voice completely. In her dream, Clare struggled to hear him but caught only meaningless fragments.
She paused to zip her jacket, and her mother took over the trolley and hurried on, the hemline of her skirt swaying in perfect alignment with that of her black wool coat, her coppery bob dancing over the collar. Clare followed. Shutting out Isobel Fraser’s chit-chat, shutting out Emma, she searched the frigid air for her father. She’d been back home almost an hour; it was about time they spoke.
It must be a wee bit warmer in Vancouver these days, he said, predictably.
His voice was perfectly intact. He’d been gone so long (heart attack in the driveway, on his way to play golf) that many of the particulars of his existence could be difficult to retrieve. But the voice of Alastair Fraser, no less real than it had been in life, lingered, indefinitely it seemed, in Clare’s head.
You say that every time I go out there, Dad. Vancouver’s warm and rainy, just like Scotland. You’d hate it.
Aye, I suppose I would. He spoke in the scant, reluctant way he’d always spoken, never uttering more than a sentence or two, a measured observation, a pellet of sensible advice. But only at home. You’ll be moving out there then, I suppose, he said next, and Clare clenched her hands in her pockets.
I don’t know. Maybe.
She’d been thinking about it. “It’s time, Clare,” the real Emma had insisted, just the night before. “You’re stuck in a rut and it’s not doing you or your mother any good. Listen to me: I’ve known you forever. It’s fine to be close to your family, but there’s a limit. You’re thirty-one, for God’s sake. I’ll help you find work. I’ve got heaps of connections at the college.” It all made sense. And Vancouver was a nice enough place—slower than Montreal, which suited Clare fine. Each time she visited, the idea of moving there gained appeal, until now, she realized, it was pressing inside her with just enough urgency that she could, perhaps, act on it.
She